Lemniscate Là
by Ehres
Summary: Eric decides to die and Godric finally understands why. Eric/Godric, innocent. One-shot.


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Eric decides to die.

He's stood over Godric, staring down into those unfathomable, tired eyes, and they both feel the sun start to rise over the lip of the horizon; neither budges. Their noses are little more than an inch apart, so close they can feel warm breath on each other's mouths, almost like they're going in for a tender kiss – but the hard, stoic look that holds Godric's beautiful, boyish face undoes Eric's red-lined eyes and blood begins to spill down his cheek.

The Viking hasn't ever cried in his life. He hasn't even come close to it – and how wonderful a thing that he should be staring Death, Death the Little Boy in his ageless face, and crying over him when he doesn't even think about shedding a tear for his fallen mother and father.

Eric's heart pangs; Godric is his father now, has been so for the past one thousand years, has brought out the humanity in him more than his own parents, has opened his tiny, Viking, human scope of life and has shown him an entire universe. That's not even touching how it feels to look at Godric himself.

Eric realises he's right when he doesn't cry for his birth mother and father: they were good to him, taught him hunting and use of a bow, how to make clothes and live off the land. He laments them in his own time and way, and perhaps it isn't necessarily a testament to Godric's character, this crying thing.

"I know why you're crying," says Godric harshly. His words are soft around the edges. He can't find it in him to hate Eric even on the smallest level.

"I'm crying because you're ripping my fucking heart to shreds!" Eric's fangs come out and he lunges for Godric's throat. Godric, swift and catlike, steps to the side, impossibly fast even for Eric's eyes. The Viking stumbles but wheels around to stand back over him, falling deep into those soulless depths. Godric sees it too, his own eyes in the spark that has made Eric's pupils dilate. He puts a small hand on Eric's chest and pushes him away.

The action cripples the blond. He cries out and drops to his knees, the pain cutting deep into his heart. A lump forms in the back of his throat and he can't breathe. He's tugging on Godric's trousers, wrapping his arms around his legs and burying his face. Nobody's there in all of Dallas to hear the weak cries of, "No, no…"

Godric looks down at him with a deep brow. He hesitates and then puts his hand on Eric's head gently, brushing the blond mess with his thumb. It's soothing, but he knows that Eric knows he's not going to change his mind.

"Eric," he says. He's speaking Swedish. "Eric, look at me." Eric's shoulders shake and a few seconds later he stops heaving to look up at his maker. There's a face of hard love there, the face of his old father who this new Godric seems to have put away. "My son, my child, my life…" He shakes his head and kneels down beside Eric, pulling him against his chest like a bleating little lamb.

"I told you I would give the entire world to have you," he says softly. He pauses to place a butterfly kiss on his forehead. "And I have. One thousand years later you remain loyal to me and only me, except perhaps your own child, and even after all these dusks without me, you still give me your heart and soul though I have placed a burden on you."

Eric looks up and blinks, then frowns in confusion. He doesn't quite understand that Godric means by a burden. If it's eternal life, then Godric's wrong: Eric knows what eternal life is like. He doesn't feel its sting.

"Immortal life is no burden, Godric…"

Godric looks down at him sadly, a message at the back of his throat he doesn't have the heart to tell. Or perhaps it's disappointment; he thought Eric would have understood by now. It's clear this isn't going to be easy.

"I was referring to love. Love is the burden I gave to you." Eric looks utterly taken aback, offended even. He pushes up but Godric holds him in place. The sky's becoming dangerously blue now, so he has to hurry up. "I understood, as you do now, what companionship would mean. I poured into you endless love, and you pour that into your own child, but for me it is not the same." He turns his head upwards to watch the morning clouds drift by lazily. "My time is up. I could go on living, night by night, always a boy, always alive, but I have given what was mine to give."

Eric's shaking again. He pads at Godric's chest helplessly.

"There is no rule, Eric, to say that you must do as I do, but there is nothing left for me now. You pour your love into your offspring, as I once did for you, and you do not belong to me anymore." He lowers his voice to a tender hush. "My maker, Eric…" Eric scrunches his eyes shut. He's been waiting for this, to learn about Godric's father. "My maker, Eric, was a very good man. Like me, he made mistakes – but like me, he loved, and when he realised I had enough life and will to become my own person, he let me go and he lived out his days happily. And of course I was sad to see him die, for the love I have for him matches your affection, but I understood and I respected. I am an old man, Eric, like my maker, and I have given you everything I was given as a young child, a wild, unruly vampire during his first few months of life. I am here to set you free and ask, if you could be so wonderful and kind, to do the same for me."

Eric closes his eyes as the words wash over him like an ocean of calm. There's acid mixed among the froth somewhere, sloshing at his face, hurting him all over, but it's his heart that hurts the most. His head can understand Godric, but his heart is that twenty-eight year old human man looking Death in the face. He wishes he could see that Godric again, feel his touch on his skin, breathing life into him.

"Do you remember when you found me," begins Eric quietly, "on the funeral pyre? I was ready to die, preparing myself for the glory of Valhalla, and then the gods sent you, beautiful and brutal with life all over you like some great stink." He sighs. "A little boy and a killer, no older than fifteen I thought you were, and when you touched me it felt like death had crawled inside me and had curled up somewhere to make room for every bit of life on Earth."

Godric hears him draw in a breath.

"During those first few years of blood, bodies, flesh, I couldn't operate outside of this little view you had instilled into me. I was always thinking of the next meal, how many children we would happen upon, but despite the selfishness there was something ingrained into me, carved deep inside my blood. It was a siren song that called louder than the smell of life." Eric prizes himself from Godric's arm and puts a gentle hand under his chin. "It was the need to follow you wherever you went, just as you had followed me. This love…" he puts Godric's hand over his heart, "is not a burden."

Godric's eyes search Eric's for the longest moment, and then Eric leans down and places a very tender kiss at the corner of Godric's mouth. Their lips brush, catching a little, parting ever so lightly, and then Godric pushes just a little and there's another soft chaste. There's nothing sexual about but, but rather loving, sensual in a soul-mate sort of way. It's the need to be in contact that has them so sensitive with each other; Godric holds Eric like a glass doll and Eric holds Godric like a fragile little bird.

It's the kiss that settles Godric's heart. They're together for a couple of seconds and then they're resting with their foreheads touching. Eric strokes Godric's jaw as if it's a feather he doesn't want to ruin, and he thinks of Pam. His heart is calm now and he knows she understands. She's very young, younger than Bill, completely infantile compared to Godric, but she has a strong heart and this is a conversation she's had with him before. Death, for her, comes and goes: seeing Miriam die taught her a lesson about life, and Eric knows that she feels his plea to go. Because he is a father, but he's also a child, and he must go and let Pam flourish.

He releases her and she becomes a blank spot in his mind. It's painful, and he still loves her, but she cherishes life like the beautiful things in it, and Eric is one of those things on the cusp of existence. Godric's completely out of it.

"I'll burn faster than you," murmurs Godric quietly, "I'm very old."

Eric laughs lightly, pushing his lips again to the corner of Godric's mouth. "So am I," he says.

There are several minutes of silence before the sun breaks into the sky, and they're both starting to burn. Godric's skin is already bright blue, his dark tattoos fading. He stands up slowly, Eric joining him, and they both go to the edge of the rooftop to look the sun in the face. Flakes of soul are beginning to fly into the sky, but they're held fast together by their hands. Godric, in a last second of thought, curls inwards under the crook of Eric's arm and watches with him as the sun climbs higher and higher.

Eric's happiness is sweet. He's satisfied, complete. There's nobody else Godric would rather be with, not even his own maker.

But the time for humanity and immortality has passed. The sun, more eternal than all vampires, is welcoming them back to the world with his glorious face. Godric speaks, his voice strong and gentle.

"This is it, Eric," he says, "I am about to die." He's burning bright blue now, his face engulfed by fire. Eric's is a little more summery, but for the both of them this is the highlight of life. He sighs contentedly.

"Goodbye," he says, and then he's gone.

Eric watches his body and soul flutter away into the sky and feels Godric leave him. It'd normally be something painful, unfixable, but there's a smile stretching his features. He thinks about Pam for one last second, and wishes Sookie the best, and hopes that Bill becomes a better person, and then his body begins to disintegrate. With his last ounce of strength, he murmurs into the wind.

"Like I said."

Then he follows him into the sun.


End file.
